A Forum for Orthodox Jewish thought on Halacha, Hashkafa, and the social issues of our time.

Tuesday, July 16, 2013

On Tisha B'Av and Owning the Holocaust

Mass grave in Bergen-Belsen

One of the things that greatly disturbs me is when someone publicly
desecrates Yom HaShoah (Holocaust Remembrance Day) in Israel. That is the day in the Hebrew month of Nissan (shortly
following Pesach), that Israel commemorates the tragedies of the Holocaust. Most
commonly it is desecrated by ignoring the sirens that are sounded for two minutes.

Israel
comes to a standstill. People stop in their tracks with their heads bowed until
the sound of the siren ends. Ever since that day was established in 1953, there
are some people who consider it their duty to ignore it and go about they were
doing. The reasons they do that is because of the controversy of picking that
date. The Month of Nissan there are not supposed to be any signs of mourning.

While their arguments may or may not have some merit, the
fact that they thumb their noses at it in some sort of ‘holy’ defiance is
anything but holy. It is in fact an insult to any remaining survivor and their children…
and a huge Chilul HaShem!

But what do you expect from people who are willing to insult,
vilify, and injure anyone wearing an IDF uniform – even if they are clearly
Charedi. I am therefore not surprised, but no less disturbed.

I of course completely condemn their outrageous public
display of callousness towards survivors, and think the people who display this
kind of behavior ought to be put into a state of Nidui by their own Beis Din - shunned by all Jews and barred from all religious
institutions including Shuls; and prevented from participating in any way with
the rest of Klal Yisroel.

That said, my own personal preference for remembering the
Holocaust is today, the day of Tisha B’Av. This is where my mind tends to go on
this day.

As Rav Yoshe Ber Soloveichik points out, Judaism sees the concept of
time differently than do philosophers like Kant. Kant saw time as something a clock
measures - with no particular significance attached to any portion of it. Judaism believes that there are certain times in a year that are
vested with significance. Tisha B’Av is understood to be a time of great
tragedy. It is inherent in that day. Tisha B’Av is not merely a date on a calendar. It is a
day vested with sadness and tragedy. It is the day God chooses tragedies to happen.
Jewish history is replete with tragedies that happened on that day. It is not
merely a coincidence.

Aside from the fact that both Temples were destroyed other tragedies befell the Jewish people on that date as well. The Meraglim that
Moshe sent to spy out the land of Israel returned on that day to speak evil about
the land of Israel. The first crusade began on that date in 1096. The Jewish
people were expelled from England on that date in 1290.; from France in 1306;
from Spain in 1492. Himmler received his instructions for the final solution on
that date in 1941; and mass deportation of Warsaw Ghetto Jews to Treblinka
began on that date in 1942.

It is more than appropriate to focus on the Holocaust on
this day. The atrocities that befell the Jewish people during the destruction
of the Second Temple were virtually repeated during the Holocaust. If one reads
the Kinos composed by Rabbi Elazar HaKalir that we recite today we can see parallels.
Rav Soloveitchik in his commentary to
Kinos cites several examples of this – one of which was experienced by one of
his own relatives.

Just as a Midrash in Eicha Rabba (1:14) tells
the story of Miriam Bas Baytos who the Roman invaders tied to the tail of a
horse and dragged to her death when the horse was induced to gallop. So too was the Rav’s cousin whose mother was the daughter of R’ Chaim Briskser dragged to his death
by being tied to a car which then sped of resulting in his gruesome death. They
did this to his wife too at the same time, tying her to another car which sped
off.

Although
the tragedy of losing the Beis HaMikdash is the essence of Tisha B’Av, the atrocities
that accompanied it were equaled and perhaps even surpassed by what the
Nazis did to us during the Holocaust. 6
million Jews were slaughtered, most of them systematically in one way or
another until the final solution made it as efficient as possible. And if mass
murder – genocide – were not enough we had to endure what can best be described
as the Tochecha. That is the curse the Jewish people were promised twice in the
Torah by God is we did not follow His will as explained in the laws of the
Torah.

The Tochecha goes into great
detail about the kind of torturous atrocities we will endure. Many of them were
fulfilled at the time of destruction of the Beis HaMikdash and during the
Holocaust. Atrocities that are permanently
seared into the minds of survivors who either witnessed them or experienced them.
Among them were the following:

The concentration camps; the forced labor; the rape or our
women; the mass graves that Jews were forced to dig for themselves before they
were shot and killed, some surviving to be buried alive; the medical
experiments; the actual Nazi philosophy that Jews are not really human and
should be wiped of the face of the earth; the indoctrination of the Nazi SS to
learn how to not listen to the shrieks of the victims as they are about to be
killed or as they watched others being killed...

The packed cattle cars transporting Jews to their deaths; children
watching their parents get shot... and then getting shot themselves; the
conditions of disease, starvation, and death in the ghettos and the
concentration camps; the ultimate systematic march into the gas chambers that
were disguised as showers for purposes of delousing; the crematoria... all to
an indifferent world who did little to save any of us (with some very
notable exceptions).

And all of this only scratches the surface. Go to Yad Vashem
or the Holocaust Museum to see more. (And even THAT only scratches the
surface!)

The use of the word Holocaust to describe other horrific
events in the world has become more commonplace. And frankly I do not accept
that. It is a blasphemy in my view for anyone to co-opt that term for their own
agenda… even if their cause is a just
one. There is nothing that can compare to what happened in Europe between 1939
and 1945 to a single people just because they were Jewish.

I particularly resent it when anyone else uses
the term Holocaust for their own purposes... even if they have good reasons to
do so. The Holocaust was unique in so many different ways that it defies
comparison to anything else. Certainly not to chickens as used by PETA or even
by pro-life activists when referring to abortions.

As far as I am
concerned yes, we unfortunately DO own the term Holocaust. And in my view no
one else has a right to use that term for any other purpose.

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About Me

My outlook on Judaism is based mostly on the teachings of my primary Rebbe, Rabbi Aaron Soloveichik from whom I received my rabbinic ordination. It is also based on a search for spiritual truth. Among the various sources that put me on the right path, two great philosophic works stand out: “Halakhic Man” and “Lonely Man of Faith” authored by the pre-eminent Jewish philosopher and theologian, Rabbi, Dr. Joseph B. Soloveitchik. Of great significance is Rabbi, Dr. Norman Lamm's conceptualization and models of Torah U’Mada and Dr. Eliezer Berkovits who introduced me to the world of philosophic thought. Among my early influences were two pioneers of American Elementary Torah Chinuch, Rabbis Shmuel Kaufman and Yaakov Levi. The Yeshivos I attended were Yeshivas Telshe for early high school and more significantly, the Hebrew Theological College where for a period of ten years, my Rebbeim included such great Rabbinic figures as Rabbis Mordechai Rogov, Shmaryahu Meltzer, Yaakov Perlow, Herzl Kaplan, and Selig Starr. I also attended Roosevelt University where I received my Bachelor's Degree - majoring in Psychology.